No More Dreams in Dreamland
by Lizzy Rebel
Summary: [oneshot, angst AH] Astyanax cries and there is no father to soothe him


_Disclaimer:_ I do not own _Troy_, it belongs to that guy… who doesn't know the first thing about the myth, obviously

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**No More Dreams in Dreamland**

The baby boy was crying.

His shrieks broke the silence the night cast on the castle. The peace that had come upon them after hours of war and blood and tears left with the scream, flying through the balcony to the moon.

For a moment she leaned against the wall, her dark hair tangling around her face. Since she had had the boy she had known what to do with him. She had always known, had always known what words to whisper into his tiny ears, how to hold him. It was as if she had been born for the very purpose of caring for him.

But now all she could do was tremble against the smooth stone walls of their bedroom—no, no it was just her bedroom now—as her son screamed in the thrall of a nightmare. In the basinet he slept in at the edge of their—_hers_, everything was hers now—bed his legs and arms kicked.

Like a ghost she went to him. Before when her little soon awakened in the night she hadn't even gotten up. _He_ had awakened, stroked her cheek, commanded her to continue sleeping, and went to soothe his little son.

_He_ wasn't here now, was he?

Her hands rose and pressed against her lips as they trembled. She swallowed the scream that threatened to claw up her throat. Crying in front of her son would do no good, she knew. She would only frighten him more.

"Astyanax," she whispered and held the baby absently in her arms. For a moment she held it as one would a possession, a pillow even. Then her maternal instincts kicked in and she was rocking the baby, murmuring nonsense words.

The baby wouldn't be calmed. He kicked against his mother. Though he loved her and any other time he might have welcomed her warm arms and soft words, this part of the night was always special to him.

This was the part of the night when his father comforted him. When he would hold Astyanax in his big arms and the baby could feel the thick rumble of his voice deep in his chest.

His mother was all soft eyes and warm bosom. It was his father that offered him protection from the nightmares, the darkness.

_Hector…_ her throat clogged and tears came down her eyes no matter how hard she tried to stem them. _Oh… Hector… please don't…_

She tried not to remember the last sight she had of Hector. That simple acceptance. He had known he was going to die. He had known. No one could beat Achilles. Hector had known that, but his pride had not allowed him to back down.

Astyanax finally settled down against her chest, his fingers clutching against her thin chiton. His chubby face was streaked with tears and it was obvious he yearned for the strong arms of his father.

"Hector…" she whispered into the night. "I don't know what to do without you."

Andromache could still feel the presence of Hector within the room they had once shared as husband and wife. If she peered hard enough into the darkness she would think she saw him in the shadows, waiting to swoop into the light and take her into his arms. But when she reached into the darkness she only grasped air.

Her son gave another whimper in his sleep and his mother's voice reached his ears. They gave him some comfort though not nearly as much as his father's voice would have. Perhaps Astyanax knew, in the way children often do, that his father would never be there for him again.

With silent feet Andromache carried her son to the veranda, hoping that the cool breeze from the sea would soothe them both.

It was cool outside and the moonlight hid the blood that stained the sand. She knew it was there. She could not remember how many times she had stared at it from this very spot, thinking upon how many men she knew had laid there only mere hours before.

But Hector had been with her there then. He would have wrapped his arms around her shoulders and taken her to bed, drawing the thoughts of war and death from her mind with his skilled mouth and fingers.

She could see the Greek Camp at the shoreline, the tents and the fire. Tears prickled her eyes. Were they celebrating their triumph of the death of Hector, Troy's warrior? Was Achilles being dosed in wine and congratulated as his sword dried with Hector's blood?

Andromache gritted her teeth so hard that she almost felt them snap. She loosened her jaw slowly and turned her gaze from the shores.

How long ago had those shores symbolized her hopes and her dreams? How long ago had it been since she was just a young woman of Thebes stepping from the barge, a pawn in men's politics?

Hector had been there, waiting for her. When she had seen him she had choked on her own breath. She had imagined him a tired, old warrior but this was a young man with dark hair and flashing eyes.

Was it no surprise that she had fallen in love with him in a matter of days? What had begun as a marriage of duty became a union of love. Hector had given her meaning, love, a life. He had taken her into Troy and made her a Trojan woman, proud and beautiful. In him had her meaning been found.

Now he was dead, his body ready for the pyre. If he was gone what was left of her? Her dreams and her love and her hopes had died with him, impaled on the same spear as Hector's chest had been.

There was no one she could turn to in this dark place she was in. Not Helen. She could never turn to Helen. Not when Helen was wrapped in the arms of Paris every night. Not when the woman didn't know the loss Andromache suffered. Helen had suffered greatly under her Spartan husband, yes, but she had never suffered as Andromache suffered.

_And may she never suffer so…_ there was no bitterness in Andromache at Helen for having what she no longer did. Not when she knew what it felt like to love so completely, so utterly. That love could not be ignored.

"I must—I must be strong." She looked down at the tiny infant sleeping so peacefully in her arms. "Astyanax… will need me…"

But she didn't want to be strong. She wanted to sink into the darkness and never wake up. She wanted to join her husband in the afterlife. Andromache had never thought she'd have to go on without him and now that she did… she didn't know what she would do. Not without Hector.

She turned her back on the shore, on the memories. The shore was dirty now. Tainted with Greek and Trojan blood. Tainted with the blood of her friends and her family. Tainted with Hector's blood, split in rage and hatred.

When she had come to the shores of Troy all those years ago she had been a mere puppet dangling on the strings her father controlled. Hector had cut those strings and helped her build her dreams. Dreams of love and laughter and family and dark-eyed, dark-haired children playing in the palace.

But Hector had died and he had ripped her dreams from her heart. They lay with him now, sleeping silently in his chest, waiting for the fire to decimate them completely. Now she had nothing.

"Hector…" she said softly as the wind ruffled her tangled, dark hair, carrying her voice across the sand to the sea. May the sea take it, she thought, and keep it. _I cannot stand to have my voice anymore._ "What will I have without you?"

Astyanax began to cry again and she comforted him as much as she could. All she had now was her son. All she could do was look after her son, see to it that he grew up with dreams because she had none left. That had died in the heat of the sun, mangled on the spear of the greatest warrior.

Achilles was a great warrior. He knew how to kill not only men, but dreams. With a swift swing of his sword he not only decapitated his enemies but sliced dreams into tiny silvers of useless glass.

He had taken everything from her. Perhaps Achilles had not wanted to but he had. He had not only killed Troy's greatest warrior, but he had also slaughtered Troy's beautiful princess.

For Andromache there would be no more dreams.

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**Time:** twenty minutes

**Beta:** none

**Couples:** Andromache/Hector

**Genre:** angst/romance

**Status:** one-shot (complete)

**Author:** Lizzy Rebel

**Characters/Style:** Andromache, Hector angst

**Notes:** Hector is always awesome, no matter what version of the myth you watch. That's why it's always so meaningful when he dies. Because he's the good guy, the guy you aspire to be, pure and clean. So it sucks when he dies. Sucks big time.


End file.
